The place I am staying is Komaba lodge which is at the very bottom of the Komaba Campus II on Tokyo. Despite the size of the room it's actually a really nice place because its very close to the main areas of Tokyo. The big one is Shibuya which is only 2mins on the train. I don't think I've mentioned the trains before so thats probably a good thing to talk about first:
Tokyo has a huge train system, there are so many train and subway stations its hard to even explain them, I think the most daunting thing for me at first was the train and subway system. Mainly because a lot of the maps are only in japanese Kanji and not english, so knowing what lines to take and where to get off can be a problem. The picture above is of the entry to the smaller station that is very close to my lodge (its called 'komaba todaimae' which means in front of komaba university). There are gates that walk through that will ever register a card you are carrying or you can insert little tickets/cards into them.
If you try walk through without putting a ticket in or waving your card over the scanner (can scan through your wallet which is really cool) a red symbol flashes and the doors at the other end close shut. They change direction too which makes it really confusing in rush hour.
Once you get through the station gate it becomes a mission of following the colored signs that represent your 'line' (there are hundreds in tokyo, each one with 10-20 stations on it).
There are subways (which go several levels deep), and train stations. You have to be careful not to get them confused because they have different lines and are run by different companies.
The station at shinjuku I think is the largest here, is something like 1k long underground. It can be a long walk to transfer lines if you have to get from one side to the other!
At the subway once I also saw this pretty cool device to move books up stairs so I thought id post that too!
1 comment:
Hey bro! Sounds like you are starting to work the place out, keep it up! You are doing well:) Your blog postings give us all some really cool insight into some of your daily adventures,and it sounds like you are starting to settle down, after initially landing in a completely foreign place and culture. Have a good day, and enjoy each aspect and step of your journey. Rock On! lots of love from us all back in NZ...and remember - "There are no shortcuts to any place worth going"...your bro, Jer.
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